Chickenpox: History, Symptoms and Treatment

Chickenpox is a thing that has affected many people in the past and even now in the present. It was discovered in the 1500s by a man named Giovanni Filippo who lived in Italy. Later on in the 1600s Richard Morton, an English physician, was studying this virus and gave it the name Chickenpox. This was because he thought it was a milder form of the virus called smallpox. However this was disproven in the 1700s by William Heberden, another English physician, but the virus’s name stayed as it was.

Transmission of Chickenpox

The hosts of this virus are humans and the way people contract this virus is typically by getting it from someone who already has it or by someone having varicella zoster and it mutating into varicella. Now the first way mentioned could be through coming in contact with an infected person’s coughs or sneezes as the virus is airborne, but it can also be gotten from the blisters that appear on someone’s skin when they have it.

Symptoms and Vaccination

Common symptoms typically include small and itchy blisters, fevers, tiredness, and headaches. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention think it’s best for kids 12 to 15 months old to receive their first vaccination. Typically they receive their second vaccination at ages 4 to 6 years old. It typically takes 10 to 14 days for the blisters to scab over and you to no longer be contagious.

Treatment Options

While there are no specific cures for Chickenpox, a way to prevent it is by getting the Varicella Vaccine. This vaccine was discovered by Michiaki Takahashi in 1995 after his son had come down with the sickness. Michiaki’s son had contracted the virus in 1964 but Michiaki didn’t start developing a vaccine until 1965. Over the course of five years he came up with an early version of this vaccine though. 1972 was the year that Michiaki started to test with the vaccine and see if it was actually helping.

After a few years a few countries started a vaccination program, although it wasn’t until 1995 that the United States allowed the Chickenpox Vaccine. If you do end up getting this virus though, you can take several medications to ease the symptoms until it has run its course. If the situation gets bad enough though, doctors will give you antivirals or varicella zoster immune globulin. This is an injection made up of many antibodies to varicella zoster to make the Chickenpox less severe to people who show high risk with the virus.

Long-term Effects

Chickenpox, or Varicella, is a mutation of the Varicella Zoster virus, a form of herpes. It’s classified under the order of Herpesvirales and can live in the nerve cells of the body for decades. In some cases it can return again but in the form of shingles which occurs mostly in adults. This is a painful virus that can last from a few days to a few weeks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Chickenpox is something that doesn’t typically occur in our lives anymore. You’ll see the rare case every now and again, which will be a very mild case but for the most part it is something of our past. This shows that even though we may not have a cure or a way to lessen some of the diseases or viruses today, there’s always the possibility that we may in the future. After all we are continually growing in the science industry and discovering many new things to make the world better. We as people thought that so many things of the past would never get cured, but here we are today. We have a way to help ourselves get through Chickenpox and even though it isn’t a hundred percent all the time it’s much better than it was in the past.